EIGHTH ORDINARY MEETING. 53 



EIGHTH ORDINARY MEETING. 



The Eighth Ordinary Meeting of the Session i883-'84 was 

 held on Saturday, December 22nd, 1883, the President in the 

 chair. 



The minutes of last meeting were read and confirmed. 



The following gentlemen were elected members of the 

 Institute : — 

 H. K. Langton, B.A., Charles Miles, C. E., S. George Curry, Architect. 

 The following exchanges were announced : 



1. Annual Report of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard College 



for 1882-'83. 



2. Science, Vol. 2, No. 45, December 14, 1883. 



3. Monthly Weather Review for November, 1883. 



4. Report of the Superintendent of the United States Coast and Geodetic 



Survey for the year ending June, 1881. 



Mr. Alan Macdougall, C. E , F. R.S. E., read a paper en- 

 titled : — 



CANADIAN CATTLE TRADE AND ABATTOIRS. 



The dependence of Britain on foreign or extraneous sources for 

 much of its food supplies has led to the formation of numerous in- 

 dustries all over the world, and especially on the North American 

 Continent. For its bread-stuffs it may be said to be wholly depend- 

 ent on the United States, as the quantities sent over from there 

 entirely dwarf the receipts from European countries. Out of the 

 amount exported to Europe, Britain receives 75 per cent, of the 

 wheat, and 90 per cent, of the flour and corn. The wheat crop in 

 1880 a failure in most of the European countries was a surprisingly 

 abundant one in the States, and it is due to this that many of these 

 countries were saved from starvation. 



As the intercourse between Britain and her colonies has increased 

 closer trade relations have been established, and with none have 

 these relations grown to greater bulk than with our Dominion. Our 

 export of bread-stuffs are assuming gratifying proportions, year by 

 year they increase, and year by year the importance of our magnifi- 

 cent waterways grow in like magnitude. Our exports of bread-stuffs 



